One Eternal Day

Beliefs have consequences

2008-05-16T21:38:00.003-05:00

If you believe you should, often you will:

A new study shows that people of faith in America have a huge heart in terms of giving to Third World countries - and the study cites a surprising dollar figure.

Carol Adelman of the Hudson Institute cites the information in a study done with Notre Dame University. "We didn't realize it would be as large as it was, and we came out with a number of $8.8 billion worth of goods and services that churches are giving overseas to developing countries," she points out.

That figure represents nearly 40 percent of the foreign aid provided by the United States to the same region - and the money from churches is apparently doing a lot of good, says Adelman. ....

According to Adelman, U.S. foreign aid to those same countries is $23.5 billion.

Religious Americans are generous (OneNewsNow.com)

"Is it easy to love God?"

2008-05-16T19:52:00.004-05:00

From Timothy Keller's The Reason for God [pp. 47-50]:

One of the principles of love—either love for a friend or romantic love—is that you have to lose independence to attain greater intimacy. If you want the "freedoms" of love—the fulfillment, security, sense of worth that it brings—you must limit your freedom in many ways. You cannot enter a deep relationship and still make unilateral decisions or allow your friend or lover no say in how you live your life. To experience the joy and freedom of love, you must give up your personal autonomy. The French novelist Francoise Sagan expressed this well in an interview in Le Monde. She expressed that she was satisfied with the way she had lived her life and had no regrets:
Interviewer: Then you have had the freedom you wanted?
Sagan: Yes ... I was obviously less free when I was in love with someone. . . . But one's not in love all the time. Apart from that . . . I'm free.
Sagan is right. A love relationship limits your personal options. Again we are confronted with the complexity of the concept of "freedom." Human beings are most free and alive in relationships of love. We only become ourselves in love, and yet healthy love relationships involve mutual, unselfish service, a mutual loss of independence. C. S. Lewis put it eloquently:
Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.
Freedom, then, is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us.

For a love relationship to be healthy there must be a mutual loss of independence. It can't be just one way. Both sides must say to the other, "I will adjust to you. I will change for you. I'll serve you even though it means a sacrifice for me." If only one party does all the sacrificing and giving, and the other does all the ordering and taking, the relationship will be exploitative and will oppress and distort the lives of both people.

At first sight, then, a relationship with God seems inherently dehumanizing. Surely it will have to be "one way," God's way. God, the divine being, has all the power. I must adjust to God—there is no way that God could adjust to and serve me.

While this may be true in other forms of religion and belief in God, it is not true in Christianity. In the most radical way, God has adjusted to us—in his incarnation and atonement. In Jesus Christ he became a limited human being, vulnerable to suffering and death. On the cross, he submitted to our condition—as sinners—and died in our place to forgive us. In the most profound way, God has said to us, in Christ, "I will adjust to you. I will change for you. I'll serve you though it means a sacrifice for me." If he has done this for us, we can and should say the same to God and others. St. Paul writes, "the love of Christ constrains us" (2 Corinthians 5:14).

A friend of C. S. Lewis's was once asked, "Is it easy to love God?" and he replied, "It is easy to those who do it." That is not as paradoxical as it sounds. When you fall deeply in love, you want to please the beloved. You don't wait for the person to ask you to do something for her. You eagerly research and learn every little thing that brings her pleasure. Then you get it for her, even if it costs you money or great inconvenience. "Your wish is my command," you feel—and it doesn't feel oppressive at all. From the outside, bemused friends may think, "She's leading him around by the nose," but from the inside it feels like heaven.

For a Christian, it's the same with Jesus. The love of Christ constrains. Once you realize how Jesus changed for you and gave himself for you, you aren't afraid of giving up your freedom and therefore finding your freedom in him.

Better on film

2008-05-16T16:26:00.005-05:00

Frederica Mathewes-Green likes the movie of Prince Caspian better than C.S. Lewis's book:

Every once in awhile, a movie improves on the book on which it is based. In my bold opinion, Prince Caspian, the second Disney film drawn from C. S. Lewis’s beloved Chronicles of Narnia, is such a movie. Criticism of C. S. Lewis is rightly taboo, but facts are facts: Prince Caspian, the book, is a dud.

It was the second to be written in the series, and it’s rushed and thin. You’ll remember from the first book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, that the four Pevensie siblings find their way into the land of Narnia through a mysterious wardrobe. In Prince Caspian they are called back to Narnia again, where they must help young Prince Caspian claim his rightful throne. Unfortunately, they land nowhere near Caspian, so most of the book is occupied with the Pevensies’ struggle to cross mountains and rivers to get to him. (The action also pauses for four chapters so that a dwarf can fill us in on Prince Caspian’s life so far.) When they finally meet Caspian there is a brief battle and a happy ending, and before you know it you’re running into the opening pages of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (a much better book).
Prince Caspian, the movie, fixes all this. It knits a whole lot more story around that spare frame, and the plot gains traction while the characters gain complexity. The movie is just plain better than the book.

She has surveyed friends to find other instances where the "movie trumps book." I enjoyed some of the books more than she, or her friends, did - perhaps because I read them before seeing the movies. A few of their nominations [I've provided links to Amazon for a few of them]:

The Godfather. The movie is something magnificent — those sets, those actors, that whole heady atmosphere, marching steadily and inexorably to beautiful tragedy. I wonder if it is the sheer richness that viewers appreciated, in contrast to the book. Mario Puzo conceived of good scenes, but the big screen provided more punch.

Perhaps for similar reasons, a number of classic noir movies were nominated as being better than their books. The foggy-lonely-street-lamp look of films like The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon established a kind of atmosphere that didn’t come across on the page. Take a look at Hitchcock’s brilliant The 39 Steps, darting from a clamorous London music hall to the moonlit wilds of Scotland, and then open John Buchan’s thin novel. Then close it. ....

Blade Runner. The movie was based on a short story by sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick, and some respondents cited another of his works, Minority Report. There were a number of authors whose books kept cropping up like this — Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, John Grisham, and Robert Ludlum, among others. Some authors have terrific ideas, but don’t express them at the acme of perfection. A creative filmmaker can draw on original raw material and produce something more satisfying. ....

The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Them’s fightin’ words, I know. Among respondents there was a feeling that the series, as J. R. R. Tolkien wrote it, is just plain ponderous. .... Director Peter Jackson had a better idea. He saw the essential beauty of the story, and brought it to the screen unimpeded.

The situation is nearly opposite with The Chronicles of Narnia. While Tolkien’s works are vast and grave, Lewis’s Narnia stories feel unaffected, sympathetic, homey. If in The Lord of the Rings someone is always swinging an axe at the head of a monster, in The Chronicles of Narnia he is getting out of the rain, warming up by the fire, and having some tea and biscuits. I think that Lewis had a better knack for storytelling than Tolkien did....

But as charming as the Narnia stories are, the movies give them more body, more strength. ....

It’s entertaining to think of movies that excel their sources, if only because they aren’t that common. Most of the time, the book is better than the movie, if only because greater length allows for greater depth. That depth doesn’t always happen; sometimes there’s more potential than the author explored, as with Prince Caspian. But the names of movies that came nowhere near the achievement of the book are too numerous to list. I’ll close with just one example: The Greatest Story Ever Told. [the article]

Frederica Mathewes-Green on Film Adaptations on National Review Online

Personality takes a back seat

2008-05-16T11:14:00.002-05:00

"Put not your trust in princes" ... or in pastors. Everyone needs to be responsible to someone. When the personality of the preacher is the center of the church, the fallibility of that preacher - and we are all fallible - is the weakness of the church. Skye Jethani writing at Out of Ur about the "Church Celebrity Deathmarch":

The spring issue of Leadership includes an interview with the pastoral team at The Next Level Church in Denver. After building a booming church around the dynamic gifts of a senior pastor, TNL imploded. The senior pastor/preacher left amid controversy and the church’s attendance dropped like Wiley Coyote from a cliff. In the aftermath, the remaining pastors reorganized TNL sans senior pastor. They’ve opted for a team approach with leaders sharing equal authority and responsibility. ....

Other young church leaders are forgoing the traditional senior pastor model. They prefer a flattened structure with shared responsibility where a team, rather then an individual, has the steering wheel. Thus no one achieves celebrity status in the congregation. .... The reason is linked to the scary rate of failure seen among senior pastors. ....

Having a single “face with the place,” a senior pastor who fills the pulpit and whose personality permeates the entire congregation, has been the popular model for evangelicals, but these ecclesial celebrities crash and burn at a rate greater than a sub-Saharan airline. As Gray points out, the problem is the system and not just the pastors. So many younger evangelicals are seeking churches liberated from the celebrity death spiral. ....

In my area we are seeing a striking number of younger evangelicals move toward high-church traditions—particularly Anglican. .... At first glance one might see this as being completely out of phase with the trend outlined above. After all, high church traditions are all about structure and hierarchy. There are priests, and bishops, and even archbishops.

But a closer examination reveals that this trend may also be coming from the same discontentment with personality-driven congregations. Anglican worship is built on a time-honored liturgy that emphasizes prayer, Scripture, and the Eucharist. While preaching is certainly present, the preacher and his/her personality does not dominate corporate worship. The same could be said of the worship leader. Personality takes a backseat to tradition.

Similarly, while some churches are trying to minimize risk through a team structure, high-church traditions protect congregations from the failures of a single leader through a hierarchy that stretches far above the local church. This is one example where the much-derided denomination still has an advantage over non-denominational churches. [the article]

Each form of polity has advantages and disadvantages. Hierarchy is not insurance against error - a hierarchical structure can make things worse - decentralization can be insurance against corruption of various kinds. But giving too much attention and authority to any individual is asking for trouble - we each need to be under authority.

Church Celebrity Deathmatch | Out of Ur | Conversations for Ministry Leaders

Honoring the day

2008-05-16T10:37:00.003-05:00

Iain Campbell believes that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. I believe the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath set by God.* It is a difference that can only exist among those who believe that the idea of Sabbath is important. Behavior like that described here does honor to God - not because it earns anything - we are saved by grace - but because it is the appropriate response to the love He has demonstrated for us. It is also a good example for those of us who, although we may go to church on the Sabbath, otherwise treat that day like any other in the week. Campbell in a post titled "Them that honour me...":

Some of today's Scottish newspapers are running a story about our local school's girls' football team. Against all the odds, they beat off older teams from larger schools all over Scotland, to reach the final of a national tournament sponsored by Coca-Cola - only to discover it was scheduled to be held on a Sunday. To not a little disappointment, the decision was taken to pull out of the opportunity to win the national tournament because of the religious convictions of our community. ....

I'm not sure what other evangelicals think of the decision of our local girls to pull out of the final: I suspect that on the whole issue of observing the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath, many evangelicals have capitulated to the world's way of doing things, and would see nothing wrong with holding, or attending, sports events on the Lord's Day.

If this week's headlines demonstrate anything, they show that there is one God-given opportunity for us to nail our Christian convictions to the social mast - to honour the Lord publicly by honouring his day, and making it altogether different from every other day of the week, whatever the cost.

The story, and its title, calls to mind the great film, Chariots of Fire, and Eric Liddell's refusal to run on Sunday in the 1924 Paris Olympics.

*“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. (Ex 20:8-10, ESV)

Them that honour me... - Reformation21 Blog

Democracy in America

2008-05-15T13:59:00.005-05:00

Eight years ago sixty-one percent of California's voters supported an initiative including this language: "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California." Today four California Supreme Court justices overturned that decision, saying that it violated the “fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship.” From the AP:

In a monumental victory for the gay rights movement, the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that would allow same-sex couples in the nation's biggest state to tie the knot.

Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3....

Outside the courthouse, gay marriage supporters cried and cheered as news spread of the decision.

The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted the monthlong wedding march that took place when Mayor Gavin Newsom opened the doors of City Hall to same-sex marriages. ....

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Marvin Baxter agreed with many arguments of the majority but said the court overstepped its authority. Changes to marriage laws should be decided by the voters, Baxter wrote.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Baxter, writing for himself and Chin, accused the court majority of substituting "by judicial fiat its own social policy views for those expressed by the people." ....

The court "does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice," Baxter said.

From the third dissenting justice:

From associate justice Corrigan’s separate dissent: “The principle of judicial restraint is a covenant between judges and the people from whom their power derives.… It is no answer to say that judges can break the covenant so long as they are enlightened or well-meaning.… If there is to be a new understanding of the meaning of marriage in California, it should develop among the people of our state and find its expression at the ballot box.”

James M. Kushiner:

Let's just close down our legislatures, burn or toss our voting booths, and swear fealty to the justices of the courts.

Judges create new law, by fiat, out of their own values, and then the people must campaign to get it overturned. The people of California will probably have the opportunity to reassert democracy by constitutional amendment in November.

California's top court overturns gay marriage ban - Yahoo! News, SF Gate: State Supreme Court says same-sex couples have right to marry, Bench Memos on National Review Online

What is an "Evangelical," anyway?

2008-05-14T17:16:00.002-05:00

Several people respond to the Washington Post question: "Some Christian leaders issued An Evangelical Manifesto last week to depoliticize the term 'evangelical.' 'We evangelicals are defined theologically, and not politically, socially or culturally,' they said. In your mind, what is the definition of an evangelical?" - including Charles Colson, Cal Thomas, Martin Marty, N.T. Wright, and - Deepak Chopra?!

On Faith at washingtonpost.com

Faith and politics

2008-05-14T12:29:00.001-05:00

Richard Land, who is President of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Commission, has not signed the "Evangelical Manifesto" even though he approves of most of the signers and agrees with ninety percent of the document's argument. He explains why he isn't signing in a Baptist Press article excerpted here:

Lastly, the Manifesto turns to finding "a new understanding of our place in public life." I agree, and have said publicly many times, that as Christians and evangelicals we should never be "completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, class, tribe, or national identity." I have often said that our ultimate allegiance is to God, never any candidate or political party.

However, the Manifesto acknowledges and lauds the impact and influence of prominent evangelical political reformers such as William Wilberforce and movements such as "the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage." The question must be asked, "How did Wilberforce end the slave trade?" He was a Member of Parliament, and he used the political process to end the slave trade.

Just so, the abolitionists used the political process to end slavery. If the mid-19th-century Democratic Party tried to be pro-choice on slavery while the abolitionists, President Lincoln, and the Republicans were adamantly anti-slavery, did the slavery issue become a partisan issue? If so, whose fault was that, the pro-slavery and pro-choice party or the anti-slavery party?

If these men and groups had stayed above the fray, beyond the reach of the rough and tumble political process, their goals would have been reached, if ever reached completely, over a much longer time frame and after much additional suffering by those being victimized by societal evil. ....

.... In the midst of an eloquent plea for freedom of conscience and religious liberty, the Manifesto declares that "we have no desire to coerce anyone or to impose on anyone beliefs and behavior that we have not persuaded them to adopt freely...."

.... As an evangelical Christian I am also a citizen who has an obligation to be salt and light in society and a right to expect the divinely ordained civil magistrate (the government) to punish those who do evil (Romans 13:1-7). Consequently, it is my duty as a Christian to work to persuade my fellow citizens to enact laws which will coerce the behavior of those who are victimizing and brutalizing others against their will. I do want to support the government coercing the behavior of slaveholders, of pedophiles, of rapists and of murderers. I am not content to allow pedophiles and rapists to continue their bestial behavior until I have "persuaded them" to stop.

I don't think the Manifesto intends to say this, but I can assure you that secularist adversaries in our society will pounce on this statement's lack of clarity to assert that some evangelicals have renounced any legislation of morality. [the article]

Baptist Press - FIRST-PERSON: Why I am not signing the 'Evangelical Manifesto' - News with a Christian Perspective

The Jesus of yesterday and today and forever

2008-05-14T09:58:00.003-05:00

The excerpts below are from another review of Why We're Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be, this one by another who, in many ways fits the pattern, but nevertheless doesn't belong to the "emerging church." Kristen Scharold at First Things from "The Emerging Church and Its Critics":

.... I, like DeYoung and Kluck, should be an emergent Christian. In my more presumptuous moods, I call myself a writer, and I’m a fan of Dave Eggers. I grew up in an evangelical church. I live in a part of Brooklyn whose edges are rougher than the hipster paradise of Williamsburg. I love to listen to bands, which if named, will instantly lose their indie appeal. I drink lattes. I hate easy answers. I enjoy deep conversations. So shouldn’t I be craving a new kind of Christianity that will undo my traditional evangelical upbringing while satisfying my newfound love for diversity, social justice, and, of course, soul searching?

Not at all. Despite my hipster leanings and stale Christian pedigree, I am not emergent, if emergence is defined by its theology instead of just its ethos. And after reading this book, I am even more grateful that I never jumped onto the emergent bandwagon. I am not the only young Christian who appreciates many aspects of postmodern culture but who also yearns for the absolute conviction that DeYoung and Kluck present.

“Some of us long for teaching that has authority, ethics rooted in dogma, and something unique in this world of banal diversity,” DeYoung writes. “We long for Jesus—not a shapeless, formless good-hearted ethical teacher Jesus, but the Jesus of the New Testament, the Jesus of the church, the Jesus of faith, the Jesus of two millennia of Christian witness with all of its unchanging and edgy doctrinal propositions.”

This Jesus is the Jesus of traditional doctrine, the Jesus of yesterday and today and forever. He is not a Jesus who will go out of style along with skinny jeans, tight cowboy shirts, and aviator sunglasses.

Throughout the book, the authors make the case that the emergent church is simply a fad. In fact, the emergent church seems to be going down the same accommodationist path as the mainline, bourgeois, modern churches that they are reacting against. And, like the baby boomer’s megachurches, the emergent church is sweating to make the gospel entertaining and comfortable to their generation. “The mainline church bent over backward to accommodate modernism, and its members have budget crunches and shrinking churches to show for it. Will the emerging church go down the same nondoctrinal path as the mainline church relative to postmodernism?” DeYoung asks. In an attempt to “reimagine” the gospel, emergent teachers have merely repackaged the modern, seeker-sensitive approach. ....

In the end, the authors of Why We’re Not Emergent are not making a case for a new kind of Christianity. They are not trying lure emergent Christians into their fold with a hipper take on things. They are simply trying to replace the errors of the emergent church—which is, nonetheless, making important contributions to evangelicalism—with scripturally sound theology.

And it should not be so counterintuitive that young evangelicals such as myself prefer theology rooted in tradition to a spirituality waffling in relativism. We want a story with a climax so profound that it leaves us worshiping God, not reducing him to fit into our cultural paradigm. And if that story comes with a Guinness and some Coldplay, great. If not, no big deal. [the review]

Thanks to Mark Olson for the reference.

FIRST THINGS: On the Square » Blog Archive » The Emerging Church and Its Critics

Movies that redeem the time

2008-05-14T00:02:00.005-05:00

Philip Anschutz is the billionaire, and Christian, whose companies are responsible for Amazing Grace, The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Prince Caspian [in theatres this Friday], the upcoming [2009] film of C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, and much else - none rated "R". Christianity Today profiled him today:

Anschutz, 69, now owns two production companies—the family-friendly Walden Media and the more broadly focused Bristol Bay Productions. The companies' creative teams have brought us such films as Amazing Grace, Charlotte's Web, Bridge to Terabithia, Ray, and, most prominently, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, the first of seven planned movies based on C. S. Lewis's beloved Chronicles of Narnia. The second Narnia film, Prince Caspian, is due this month. Bristol Bay is also adapting The Screwtape Letters for the big screen, likely due in 2009.

Such cinematic bounty is a result not just of Anschutz's deep pockets: he's also a lifelong film buff committed to bringing more wholesome options to the local multiplex. ....

Anschutz and his wife, both Presbyterians, attend a local church and support various local charities, including Step 13, a Denver home for alcoholic men.

One longtime friend says Anschutz's faith informs everything he does.

"His set of values and beliefs permeates his life," said Jim Monaghan, a spokesman who has worked with Anschutz for 24 years. "He is a composite of religious values, ethics, and morals, but he doesn't wear it on his sleeve. He walks the talk." ....

Douglas Gresham, C. S. Lewis's stepson, who manages much of the Lewis estate, says he decided to sell the film rights to the Narnia franchise to Walden because he liked their vision—and Anschutz.

"The main reason I went with Walden," he told CT Movies in 2005, "is because of their mandate to produce good, entertaining movies that also educate, not merely in factual matters, but in matters of ethics and values and morality.

"But the clincher for me was meeting Phil Anschutz, and growing to respect him enormously and spending time in prayer with him. Walden Media has exactly the right idea what we should be using cinema for." Which is exactly what Anschutz wanted. [the article]

Hollywood Hellfighter | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

"Simple, feel-good solutions"

2008-05-13T19:45:00.003-05:00

Tony Payne explains why it isn't enough to have good intentions, especially when dealing with complex social, political and economic problems. In fact, things can be made much worse - an alternative meaning for "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." In this case the feel-good "solution" is to purchase "Fair Trade" products. From "Smell the Coffee" at the Sola Panel:

Trying to solve pricing problems on the other side of the world through our shopping choices may make us feel better, but it is unlikely to have much effect, except possibly to make the situation worse. Basic economics tells us that the usual reason prices for a particular commodity are low is that too much of it is being produced: supply and demand. This normally motivates some farmers to move into other crops that are in shorter supply, and thus have a higher price, giving greater return to the farmer. It's why those nasty free markets tend to promote efficiency and prosperity.

However, artificially propping up the price of a commodity distorts this process and removes the incentive for farmers to diversify. In fact, it does the opposite: it creates an incentive for others to start producing that crop (since it has a guaranteed higher price), thus increasing output and putting an even further downward pressure on price. So there is a reasonable chance that the well-meaning ‘Fairtrade’ movement may actually make things worse in the long run for the majority of third world farmers. The world is very complex place, and solving problems in the world (economic and otherwise) is very difficult. The intuitively obvious action (let's give some farmers more money for their coffee by buying Fairtrade) may, in fact, end up having larger negative consequences we haven't stopped to consider.

The same is true for nearly all the practical, secular problems we face. And the larger, more complex and more distant the problem, the more resistant it is to simple, feel-good solutions. ....[more]

The Sola Panel | Smell the coffee

What is truth?

2008-05-13T14:31:00.003-05:00

Sam Storms begins a five-part review of Why We're Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be, a book I've recommended before. Storms likes the book - a lot - as I did.

Obviously Evangelicalism has had and continues to have problems of definition and witness [see below], but this doesn't seem like much of an answer. The emerging emergent church seems like the current version of the "seeker-sensitive" church, but for this generation rather than the baby-boomers, except that it combines that inclination with old-fashioned liberal theology.

Brian McClaren - one of the guys most identified with the emerging/emergent whatever - doesn't help much with his inability to actually answer this question:

Q: On the theology behind the emerging church, you reject the idea that there's an absolute truth. So what boundaries are there on theology that churches are teaching? Can any church just call itself an emerging church?

A: Obviously that's a challenge. The flip side of that question is look at the Catholic Church: For all of its orthodoxy, it could have bishops covering up for molesting priests. And evangelicals, for all their claims of orthodoxy, can be barbaric to gay people and can blindly support a rush to war in Iraq and can be, as we speak, fomenting for war with Iran. ... Obviously, I have a lot of critics and they often say, 'You're wanting to water down the Gospel to accommodate to post-modernity.' I say, 'No, I really don't want to do that. But what I do want to do is acknowledge first the ways we've already watered down the Gospel to accommodate modernity.' ... I think the naivete of some of those critics is that they're starting with a pure pristine understanding of the Gospel. It seems to me we're all in danger of screwing up.

And what exactly are the boundaries? Is there truth?

Enjoying God Ministries > A Review Of Why Were Not Emergent By Two Guys Who Should Be Part One, Q&A: How 'emerging church' movement could change U.S. religious landscape

The beginning of a civil conversation?

2008-05-13T11:44:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Albert Mohler explained at some length why, although he found much to agree with, he could not sign the "Evangelical Manifesto." He concluded:

In the end, I must judge "An Evangelical Manifesto" to be too expansive in terms of public relations and too thin in terms of theology. I admire so much of what this document states and represents, but I cannot accept it as a whole. I want it to be even more theological, and to be far more specific about the Gospel, I agree with the framers that Evangelicals should be defined theologically, rather than politically, culturally, or socially. This document will have to be much more theological for it to accomplish its own stated purpose.

Now, perhaps we Evangelicals will all gain by a civil conversation about this Manifesto that calls for civility. That at least would be a good place to start. [the column]

Today, after an interview with Os Guinness, one of the authors of the document, on his radio program, Mohler continues:

Evangelicalism is an on-going project and a movement marked by a seemingly permanent identity crisis. We should be thankful for any opportunity to clarify the issues at stake - especially when we agree that Evangelicals should be defined theologically, above all.

An Evangelical Response to "An Evangelical Manifesto", "An Evangelical Manifesto" - Continuing the Conversation

Irena Sendler R.I.P.

2008-05-13T11:03:00.003-05:00

Irena Sendler died yesterday. Although she denied it, she was a hero. It is not normal to risk comfort and safety - much less life - to help a stranger. Very few do. Most of us are altogether too normal. Irena Sendler had the integrity and courage to do what was necessary when the time came - and that is the definition of heroism. The idea, of course made her impatient: "Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth," she said, "and not a title to glory," and "The term 'hero' irritates me greatly. The opposite is true. I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little,"

"I was taught that if you see a person drowning," she said, "you must jump into the water to save them, whether you can swim or not.

When the Nazis occupying Poland began rounding up Jews in 1940 and sending them to the Warsaw ghetto, Sendler plunged in.

With daring and ingenuity, she saved the lives of more than 2,500 Jews, most of them children, a feat that went largely unrecognized until the last years of her life. ....

"Irena wasn't even 5 feet tall, but she walked into the Warsaw ghetto daily and faced certain death if she was caught. Her strength and courage showed us we can stand up for what we believe in, as well," said Felt, who is now 23 and helps raise funds for aging Holocaust rescuers. ....

She studied at Warsaw University and was a social worker in Warsaw when the German occupation of Poland began in 1939. In 1940, after the Nazis herded Jews into the ghetto and built a wall separating it from the rest of the city, disease, especially typhoid, ran rampant. Social workers were not allowed inside the ghetto, but Sendler, imagining "the horror of life behind the walls," obtained fake identification and passed herself off as a nurse, allowed to bring in food, clothes and medicine.

By 1942, when the deadly intentions of the Nazis had become clear, Sendler joined a Polish underground organization, Zegota. She recruited 10 close friends - a group that would eventually grow to 25, all but one of them women - and began rescuing Jewish children.

She and her friends smuggled the children out in boxes, suitcases, sacks and coffins, sedating babies to quiet their cries. Some were spirited away through a network of basements and secret passages. Operations were timed to the second. One of Sendler's children told of waiting by a gate in darkness as a German soldier patrolled nearby. When the soldier passed, the boy counted to 30, then made a mad dash to the middle of the street, where a manhole cover opened and he was taken down into the sewers and eventually to safety. ....

Most of the children who left with Sendler's group were taken into Roman Catholic convents, orphanages and homes and given non-Jewish aliases. Sendler recorded their true names on thin rolls of paper in the hope that she could reunite them with their families later. She preserved the precious scraps in jars and buried them in a friend's garden.

In 1943, she was captured by the Nazis and tortured but refused to tell her captors who her co-conspirators were or where the bottles were buried. ....

When the war ended, Sendler unearthed the jars and began trying to return the children to their families. For the vast majority, there was no family left. Many of the children were adopted by Polish families; others were sent to Israel. .... [more]

Irena Sendler, 98; member of resistance saved lives of 2,500 Polish Jews - Los Angeles Times

Tyranny and suffering

2008-05-09T11:23:00.003-05:00

Far more people have been killed by the acts of their governments than by war. Two more ghastly instances of that are Zimbabwe and Myanmar. The suffering in Zimbabwe is entirely man-made. The suffering in Myanmar is being perpetuated and made much worse by the unwillingness of that country's military dictators to accept help.

Our government will do what it can. We can each contribute materially and pray. But we also need to find a way to get rid of the remaining dictators and encourage democratic governments that will be more responsive to the needs of their own people.

"What is right outweighs what is popular"

2008-05-09T00:29:00.014-05:00

Evangelicals wiser than me comment on an "Evangelical Manifesto."

Joe Carter has signed it [and if I thought my signature would be significant, I would too]:

This manifesto has bolstered my confidence that I won't be the last person in America to call himself an evangelical. On page 4, they note that the evangelical identity is "powerful and precious to groups as well as to individuals."
Identity is central to a classical liberal understanding of freedom. There are grave dangers in identity politics, but we insist that we ourselves, and not scholars, the press, or public opinion, have the right to say who we understand ourselves to be. We are who we say we are, and we resist all attempts to explain us in terms of our "true" motives and our "real" agenda.
This is an excellent point that should be acknowledged by the nomenclative cowards who have abandoned the term "evangelical." Too often my fellow former evangelicals think that dumping the term will make them (or to be more generous, The Gospel) more palatable to the outside world.

What they are missing (or simply refuse to admit to themselves) is that it is not the term "evangelical" that the world despises but the beliefs behind the word. Call yourself whatever you want - "post-evangelical" is my favorite - but the minute you tell the world that homosexual behavior is sinful, that killing infants in the womb is wrong, and that man has an inherent dignity because we are made in the image of God then you can expect to have that label spat upon too.

The Washington Times quotes Richard Land and Albert Mohler:

"I was never asked to sign it," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, "nor was I allowed to see the document beforehand. I'm not sure there's anything in it I'd disagree with."

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said he was passed over but doubted he would have signed a document "that vague."

The document, he said, "is often eloquent and many ways sets forth some key evangelical convictions. My questions have to do with its actual intent. How specifically do those who are framing this document wish to define evangelicalism with reference to some crucial questions, such as abortion and gay marriage? They appear to be calling for civility, but how do they suggest discussing these issues in the public square and be as civil as they think themselves to be?"

Alan Jacobs in the Wall Street Journal - he thinks it's wimpy, but a real "Manifesto" is needed:

At the bottom of page 15, these words appear: "The Evangelical soul is not for sale." This is what is called "burying the lead." Had the Evangelical Manifesto begun with this affirmation, it could have been a manifesto indeed - a declaration of political, cultural and intellectual independence. "We're fed up with being the Republicans' lapdogs, but don't think we're joining the Democratic kennel" - if only the document had spoken so clearly, so forcefully! If only it had given us some sense of whom it is speaking to, and why.... Moderation is all well and good, I guess; but for my money, the fearless spirit of the true manifesto is just what an increasingly somnolent evangelical movement needs.

Perhaps it does need to be said more clearly. Perhaps the message is buried. But this seems to be what needs to be said. From the "Manifesto":

...[W]e Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, or nationality. In our scales, spiritual, moral, and social power are as important as political power, what is right outweighs what is popular, just as principle outweighs party, truth matters more than team-playing, and conscience more than power and survival.

Alex Chediak interviewed one of the authors, Os Guinness, and got a clarification about whether the statement represented a retreat from being anti-abortion:

CHEDIAK: When you express your desire that we move beyond single-issue politics, are you saying that Christians should be more open to voting for pro-choice candidates if they demonstrate passion and concern for issues like poverty, racism, and the environment?

GUINNESS: Emphatically not, and the Manifesto is blunt about the undiminished fight for life and marriage. [....]

CHEDIAK: The Manifesto reads, "we Evangelicals wish to stand clear from certain conservative and fundamentalist positions in public life that are widely confused with Evangelicals." Why let others dictate what we can be (publicly) for or against merely by their inappropriately conflating pro-life (or whatever) with evangelicalism?

GUINNESS: Life is not the problem, and you are right that we should not be defined by the world. As I said at the press conference yesterday, the issue is not re-branding or image. It is reality. But the Bible says a lot about the fact that we should so live that the name of God is honored. Thus when the Lord is publicly represented by Pastor Fred Phelps (‘God hates fags’) or by the Reconstructionists, it is not surprising that we are called ‘homophobic,’ ‘theocratic,’ and seeking to impose Christendom.

CHEDIAK: You call on "Those who share our dedication to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed," urging them to work with us to "bring care, peace, justice, and freedom to those millions of our fellow-humans who are now ignored, oppressed, enslaved, or treated as human waste and wasted humans by the established orders in the global world." I agree with this call, but would you acknowledge that our differing worldviews might result in our having widely diverging methods to addressing these problems? For example, socialistic reforms seem to minimize the doctrine of man's depravity. Any thoughts?

GUINNESS: Good point. Francis Schaeffer used to call for our being ‘co-belligerents’ rather than ‘allies’ when it comes to causes we share with people of different faiths, such as atheists against abortion or feminists against pornography. But we always recognize the ultimate inadequacy of their basis for fighting the issue, and when the appropriate moment comes we can be clear about pointing them to Christ. William Wilberforce is a great example – he worked with people of all sorts of spiritual and moral (and immoral) backgrounds, yet led many of them to faith in Christ too.

My impression is that many of those involved in the Evangelical/political environment who should, logically and properly, have been asked to sign the "Manifesto," were not asked. I am impressed by the restraint they have thus far demonstrated. I think the document itself is worthy of that restraint.

Update 5/9: Denny Burk believes that the effect of the "Manifesto" is to dilute our moral and political commitment:

The Manifesto calls for “an expansion of our concern beyond single-issue politics, such as abortion and marriage” (p. 13). The blanket dismissal of “single-issue politics” is what concerns me. Yes, the Manifesto says that “we cannot back away from our biblically rooted commitment to the sanctity of every human life, . . . nor can we deny the holiness of marriage as instituted by God between one man and one woman” (p. 13). But the document also seeks to raise other “public square” issues as if they have the same moral urgency as abortion and marriage. I for one am unwilling to tell evangelicals that they should treat the Kyoto Protocols with the same moral urgency with which we address the abortion issue—especially when it comes to evangelical engagement in electoral politics. Abortion and marriage are transcendent moral issues, and evangelicals should treat them as such.

I am especially concerned about single-issue politics in this high political season in which we presently find ourselves. In November, Americans will go to the polls to elect a president who is likely to appoint at least two Supreme Court Justices. Those Justices will determine whether Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land for the next generation or whether it will be finally overturned. Roe v. Wade has presided over the legal killings of over 50 million babies since 1973. When I step into that voting booth in November, I will not pull the lever for a candidate who will continue the immoral regime of Roe v. Wade, no matter how much I like his views on the Kyoto Protocols or balancing the federal budget. ....

Those are crucial "single issue" criteria for me, too.

Alan Jacobs expands on his concerns at The American Scene:

...[W]hat does it mean for evangelicals to be pro-life (regarding abortion, I mean) if they’re not going to vote pro-life? I can imagine good answers to this question, but the Manifesto doesn’t provide any. And if it’s going to be a real manifesto, not just an inside-the-Beltwayish White Paper, it really should.

And the biggest question of all: For whom was this written? Who cares, or is thought to care? I can’t figure that out at all.

It was, I guess, written for people like me, living in places like I live. I appreciate the distinctions the "Manifesto" makes, but the news media have focused only on what they consider its political implications - and I don't believe it has any of those, as least insofar as influencing how anyone will vote.

Thoughts on the Evangelical Manifesto - the evangelical outpost, Washington Times, Come On, You Call This a Manifesto? - WSJ.com, Alex Chediak Blog: Interaction with Os Guinness on Evangelical Manifesto, Denny Burk » Critical Reflections on “An Evangelical Manifesto”, the manifesto that isn't | Politics | The American Scene

Adding ribbons to your Bible

2008-05-07T18:21:00.004-05:00

Via Bible Design and Binding, a link to instructions for adding ribbons to your Bible - a practical and useful bit of information for those whose Bibles are sadly bereft. [Placing your cursor over each picture at the link will bring up the instructions.]

Picasa Web Albums - Matt - Adding Ribbon...

"Evangelicals should be defined theologically...not politically...."

2008-05-07T10:39:00.008-05:00

I confess to some apprehension about the Evangelical Manifesto that was to be released this morning, fearing that it would, in the guise of attacking the politicization of the faith, in fact be simply a broadside from one side - the left side. Those fears were unfounded and I find myself, with a minor quibble here and there, approving of and agreeing with what the document says. Below are some extended excerpts, but it should be read whole. It is available as a PDF here.

.... Evangelicals are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth. (Evangelical comes from the Greek word for good news, or gospel.) Believing that the Gospel of Jesus is God’s good news for the whole world, we affirm with the Apostle Paul that we are "not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation." Contrary to widespread misunderstanding today, we Evangelicals should be defined theologically, and not politically, socially, or culturally. ....

They define "Evangelical":

To be Evangelical, and to define our faith and our lives by the Good News of Jesus as taught in Scripture, is to submit our lives entirely to the lordship of Jesus and to the truths and the way of life that he requires of his followers, in order that they might become like him, live the way he taught, and believe as he believed. As Evangelicals have pursued this vision over the centuries, they have prized above all certain beliefs that we consider to be at the heart of the message of Jesus and therefore foundational for us — the following seven above all:

First, we believe that Jesus Christ is fully God become fully human, the unique, sure, and sufficient revelation of the very being, character, and purposes of God, beside whom there is no other god, and beside whom there is no other name by which we must be saved.

Second, we believe that the only ground for our acceptance by God is what Jesus Christ did on the cross and what he is now doing through his risen life, whereby he exposed and reversed the course of human sin and violence, bore the penalty for our sins, credited us with his righteousness, redeemed us from the power of evil, reconciled us to God, and empowers us with his life "from above." We therefore bring nothing to our salvation. Credited with the righteousness of Christ, we receive his redemption solely by grace through faith.

Third, we believe that new life, given supernaturally through spiritual regeneration, is a necessity as well as a gift; and that the lifelong conversion that results is the only pathway to a radically changed character and way of life. Thus for us, the only sufficient power for a life of Christian faithfulness and moral integrity in this world is that of Christ’s resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Fourth, we believe that Jesus’ own teaching and his attitude toward the total truthfulness and supreme authority of the Bible, God’s inspired Word, make the Scriptures our final rule for faith and practice.

Fifth, we believe that being disciples of Jesus means serving him as Lord in every sphere of our lives, secular as well as spiritual, public as well as private, in deeds as well as words, and in every moment of our days on earth, always reaching out as he did to those who are lost as well as to the poor, the sick, the hungry, the oppressed, the socially despised, and being faithful stewards of creation and our fellow-creatures.

Sixth, we believe that the blessed hope of the personal return of Jesus provides both strength and substance to what we are doing, just as what we are doing becomes a sign of the hope of where we are going; both together leading to a consummation of history and the fulfillment of an undying kingdom that comes only by the power of God.

Seventh, we believe all followers of Christ are called to know and love Christ through worship, love Christ’s family through fellowship, grow like Christ through discipleship, serve Christ by ministering to the needs of others in his name, and share Christ with those who do not yet know him, inviting people to the ends of the earth and to the end of time to join us as his disciples and followers of his way. ....

Later, they describe ways that Evangelicals have failed:

We confess that we Evangelicals have betrayed our beliefs by our behavior.

All too often we have trumpeted the gospel of Jesus, but we have replaced biblical truths with therapeutic techniques, worship with entertainment, discipleship with growth in human potential, church growth with business entrepreneurialism, concern for the church and for the local congregation with expressions of the faith that are churchless and little better than a vapid spirituality, meeting real needs with pandering to felt needs, and mission principles with marketing precepts. In the process we have become known for commercial, diluted, and feel-good gospels of health, wealth, human potential, and religious happy talk, each of which is indistinguishable from the passing fashions of the surrounding world.

All too often we have set out high, clear statements of the authority of the Bible, but flouted them with lives and lifestyles that are shaped more by our own sinful preferences and by modern fashions and convenience.

All too often we have prided ourselves on our orthodoxy, but grown our churches through methods and techniques as worldly as the worldliest of Christian adaptations to passing expressions of the spirit of the age.

All too often we have failed to demonstrate the unity and harmony of the body of Christ, and fallen into factions defined by the accidents of history and sharpened by truth without love, rather than express the truth and grace of the Gospel.

All too often we have traced our roots to powerful movements of spiritual revival and reformation, but we ourselves are often atheists unawares, secularists in practice who live in a world without windows to the supernatural, and often carry on our Christian lives in a manner that has little operational need for God.

All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others, such as the killing of the unborn, as well as the heresies and apostasies of theological liberals whose views have developed into "another gospel," while we have condoned our own sins, turned a blind eye to our own vices, and lived captive to forces such as materialism and consumerism in ways that contradict our faith. ....

On Evangelicals and politics:

Christians from both sides of the political spectrum, left as well as right, have made the mistake of politicizing faith; and it would be no improvement to respond to a weakening of the religious right with a rejuvenation of the religious left. Whichever side it comes from, a politicized faith is faithless, foolish, and disastrous for the church – and disastrous first and foremost for Christian reasons rather than constitutional reasons.

Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology, and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, or nationality. In our scales, spiritual, moral, and social power are as important as political power, what is right outweighs what is popular, just as principle outweighs party, truth matters more than team-playing, and conscience more than power and survival.

The politicization of faith is never a sign of strength but of weakness. The saying is wise: "The first thing to say about politics is that politics is not the first thing." ....

On religion in the "public square":

We repudiate on one side the partisans of a sacred public square, those who for religious, historical, or cultural reasons would continue to give a preferred place in public life to one religion which in almost all most current cases would be the Christian faith, but could equally be another faith. In a society as religiously diverse as America today, no one faith should be normative for the entire society, yet there should be room for the free expression of faith in the public square.

Let it be known unequivocally that we are committed to religious liberty for people of all faiths, including the right to convert to or from the Christian faith. We are firmly opposed to the imposition of theocracy on our pluralistic society. We are also concerned about the illiberalism of politically correct attacks on evangelism. We have no desire to coerce anyone or to impose on anyone beliefs and behavior that we have not persuaded them to adopt freely, and that we do no not demonstrate in our own lives, above all by love.

We repudiate on the other side the partisans of a naked public square, those who would make all religious expression inviolably private and keep the public square inviolably secular. Often advocated by a loose coalition of secularists, liberals, and supporters of the strict separation of church and state, this position is even less just and workable because it excludes the overwhelming majority of citizens who are still profoundly religious. Nothing is more illiberal than to invite people into the public square but insist that they be stripped of the faith that makes them who they are and shapes the way they see the world.

In contrast to these extremes, our commitment is to a civil public square — a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths too. Thus every right we assert for ourselves is at once a right we defend for others. A right for a Christian is a right for a Jew, and a right for a secularist, and a right for a Mormon, and right for a Muslim, and a right for a Scientologist, and right for all the believers in all the faiths across this wide land. .... [the "Manifesto" as a PDF]

Staying true

2008-05-06T13:40:00.003-05:00

An interview with Andrew Adamson, director of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and the soon-to-be-released [May 16] Prince Caspian. One of the answers:

Christian readers are among the most devoted Narnia fans, and Lewis is revered in evangelical circles. Do you feel any sort of responsibility to the Christian audience?

I feel my responsibility to C. S. Lewis's fans is just being true to the books, and letting people take from it what they will. What you take from it depends on your belief, and how much interpretation you place upon it. I think by staying true to the book, I'm staying true to what any fan gets from the book. [the interview]

Interviews: The Weight of Story | Christianity Today Movies

"Why did God let James die?"

2008-05-06T13:12:00.003-05:00

Our desires may not conform to God's purposes. "Death comes to us all" says Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons: to us, to our loved ones, to everyone. It is usually unwelcome. Jon Bloom at Desiring God writes about "The Night the Angel Didn't Come":

Luke says it so quickly, so matter-of-factly: “[Herod] killed James the brother of John with the sword” (Acts 12:2). In the flow of the story this little phrase sets the stage for Peter’s dramatic prison rescue by the angel. So that’s what we remember. When Peter later wrote, “The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials” (2 Peter 2:9), this is the sort of rescue that easily comes to mind.

But the night that James sat in prison the angel didn’t come. I’m sure he prayed for an angel. He knew God could send one if he wanted to. An angel had already rescued him and the other disciples once before, in chapter 5. But this night there was no bright light, no chains falling off, no sleeping guards. Just desperate prayers and fitful dozing—if he slept at all.

In the morning James was still in jail when the dreaded voice of the captain of the guard shouted, “Bring out the prisoner!” There was an anxiety-filled, prayerful walk to the place of execution. There was a pronouncement of guilt. Possibly there was an offer of pardon in exchange for recanting, followed by a refusal. There was a raised sword. There was a wince of fearful anticipation. No deliverance.

Or was there?

Jesus allowed the sword to fall on James as intentionally as he opened Peter’s prison door. So the death of James is as crucial for us to remember as the rescue of Peter. Why did God let James die?

This question is relevant because at some point most of us will find ourselves facing death, pleading for deliverance, and not receiving what we think we are asking for. And it points to a difficult lesson that all of Jesus’ disciples must learn: Jesus often has different priorities than we do. What may feel desperately urgent to us may not be urgent to him—at least not in the same way. ....

James was not being neglected by Jesus. He was in fact the first of the Twelve to experience what Jesus prayed for in John 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me from the foundation of the world.” Peter’s deliverance from prison was remarkable. But he lived to die another day. [more]

The Night the Angel Didn’t Come :: Desiring God

General Conference, 2008

2008-05-06T10:52:00.002-05:00

Kevin Butler, the editor of the Sabbath Recorder, is keeping up a running tally of those who register online for this year's Seventh Day Baptist General Conference:

As of today: 37 on-line registrations representing 99 participants.

And 29 rooms are still available where one child (age 11 and under) may sleep on the floor for free.

The 2008 SDB General Conference will be August 3-9 at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

This is the annual conference for American and Canadian Seventh Day Baptist churches. Each year it is held on a different college campus, so far always in the US. Necessary business is conducted [Baptists are democratic] and there is worship, study and fellowship for both young and old. This year, the Conference will also be attended by delegates to the Seventh Day Baptist World Federation, which will have held its sessions the week before Conference.

Rev. Andrew Samuels of Miami, Florida, is President of Conference this year and has chosen this theme:Online registration can be found here.

SDB Exec: May 2008

When does life begin?

2008-05-05T18:10:00.003-05:00

Obama and Clinton attempt to answer that question:

N.T. Wright: "Life after 'Life-after-death'"

2008-05-05T16:03:00.003-05:00

In an appearance on Nightline Bishop N.T. Wright explains his view that "Heaven is a temporary holding place" to be followed by the "new heaven and new earth." I think what he teaches is what the Bible teaches, but I am willing to be instructed by those many who know more than I do.

My impression is that Bishop Wright is very reliable when it comes to New Testament scholarship, but not at all so when trying to explain the political implications. He seems to think that his conclusions about the end times necessarily result in a greater concern about the physical well-being of people now. He seems to be saying that if he believed that when he died he would go to Heaven and stay there, then he would have less concern about the Earth and the people on it during his life now. I don't understand how that follows.

Our concern about our fellow man should be neither increased nor lessened by the fact that Creation will be re-made and perfected at the end of time. It will, after all, be a new earth. The reason we care about our fellow creatures - both for their spiritual and physical well-being - is because God wants us to. We love because we were first loved. "And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also." We endeavor to do good because it pleases Him and we are His people. Whether we end up in Heaven eternally, or dwelling in a New Creation, the motivation is exactly the same.